Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Katie,
of course, is in the news for her dishonest editing of an interview
with gun rights activists. In her video, she asked a rather banal
question, with a definite anti-gun bias, and then inserted several
seconds of video where the interviewees were sitting in silence, some
with their heads bowed, as if they were dumbfounded by the profundity of
her question. In reality, they answered without hesitation, and it is
we who are dumbfounded at the blatant dishonesty of someone trying to
pass this Michael Moore style crap off as a documentary.

Monday, May 30, 2016

There are places
where America’s war dead are best known and still mourned. Section 60 in Arlington National Cemetery is
but one example and yet stone sentinels of forgotten military men jut out from
rolling grassy hills all across this country.
Some have not seen a single visitor kneel at their graveside for more
than a century.

Known originally as Decoration Day as proclaimed by Gen. John
Logan on May 5, 1868, the special day was borne out of the desire to honor the Union
war dead and decorate their graves with flowers.

By the 20th century,
competing Union and Confederate holiday traditions,
celebrated on different days, had merged, and Memorial Day eventually extended
to honor all Americans.

Our co-bloggers Proof and Adrienne join me in offering
our thoughts and prayers to all those who are grieving. Nothing we say can lessen your sorrow, but we
do know your loved ones are in the arms of God guarding the gates of Heaven.

Sunday, May 29, 2016

I’m beginning to
loathe the very sight of The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer.

On Friday, May 27th
he became the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima, the most potent
symbol of the dawning of the nuclear age where the dropping of the first atomic
bomb helped end World War II.

Media outlets throughout the globe used honeyed words to
describe the event:

“In a solemn ceremony on a sunwashed afternoon, Obama and
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe placed wreaths before the cenotaph, a simple
arched stone monument at Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Park.”

“Only the clicking of camera shutters intruded on the
moment as Obama closed his eyes and briefly bowed his head.”

“Then, after each leader gave brief remarks, Obama
approached two aging survivors of the bombing who were seated in the front row,
standing in for the thousands still seared by memories of that day.”

For those who were
born after the end of the global conflagration, anti-American historical
revisionism sanitized accounts of that day do little to explain what led to
President Harry Truman’s decision to drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

“Sixteen hours ago an American airplane dropped one bomb
on Hiroshima and destroyed its usefulness to the enemy. That bomb had more
power than 20,000 tons of TNT. It had more than two thousand times the blast
power of the British "Grand Slam" which is the largest bomb ever yet
used in the history of warfare.”

“The Japanese began the war from the air at Pearl Harbor.
They have been repaid many fold.[Emphasis mine] And the end is not yet. With this bomb we
have now added a new and revolutionary increase in destruction to supplement
the growing power of our armed forces. In their present form these bombs are
now in production and even more powerful forms are in development.”

“It is an atomic bomb. It is a harnessing of the basic
power of the universe. The force from which the sun draws its power has been
loosed against those who brought war to the Far East.”

“Before 1939, it was the accepted belief of scientists
that it was theoretically possible to release atomic energy. But no one knew
any practical method of doing it. By 1942, however, we knew that the Germans
were working feverishly to find a way to add atomic energy to the other engines
of war with which they hoped to enslave the world. But they failed. We may be
grateful to Providence that the Germans got the V-1's and V-2's late and in
limited quantities and even more grateful that they did not get the atomic bomb
at all.”

“The battle of the laboratories held fateful
risks for us as well as the battles of the air, land, and sea, and we have now
won the battle of the laboratories as we have won the other battles.”

[SKIP]

“We are now prepared to obliterate more rapidly and
completely every productive enterprise the Japanese have above ground in any
city. We shall destroy their docks, their factories, and their communications.
Let there be no mistake; we shall completely destroy Japan's power to make
war.”

“It was to spare the Japanese people from utter
destruction that the ultimatum of July 26 was issued at Potsdam. Their
leaders promptly rejected that ultimatum. If they do not now accept our terms
they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been
seen on this earth. Behind this air attack will follow sea and land forces in
such number that and power as they have not yet seen and with the fighting
skill of which they are already well aware.”

In the summer of
1945, the city of Tokyo was decimated in the firebombing which killed about
100,000 people. Even so, the Japanese
refused to surrender.

The near instant
death of thousands in Hiroshima had to be followed by a second bombing of Nagasaki
three days later to prove to the Japanese that America could annihilate them.

Between 50 and 80
million people died during the war. The
death toll for the Japanese on their soil was a small price to pay to prevent
the casualties of perhaps millions more had the war in the Pacific ground on.

The Japanese Imperial
Army committed scores of war crimes.
Thousands died in the Bataan Death March because of the
brutality of their captors who starved and beat the Filipino and American
marchers.

In 1942 about 3,500
men, British and Australian, had been brought to Sandakan camp to build an airfield
for the Japanese. Suffering from Allied
bombing raids, the Japanese decided to march the POWs 164 miles into the jungle
interior to Ranau. None of the approximately 800 British POWs survived the
ordeal of the march and accompanying massacres and atrocities. Only six
Australians were alive at the end of the war.

In February of 1942,
a group of 21 nurses and a large group of men, women and children evacuated to
Johor Baharu in Malaya after the Japanese invaded. The ship they boarded was sunk by Japanese
aircraft near Radji Beach on Banka Island.
They swam ashore and were joined the next day by about 100 British
soldiers. The Japanese killed the men
then motioned the nurses to wade into the sea then machine-gunned them from
behind in what is known as the Banka Island Massacre.

There were also
horrific accounts of cannibalism.in Wewak, New Guinea and the book Flyboys recounts how Lt. Col. George Herbert Walker
Bush was among nine airmen who escaped from their planes after being shot down
during bombing raids in Chichi Jima. He
was the only one to evade capture by the Japanese.

The other eight
“flyboys” were tortured, beaten and then executed, either by beheading with
swords or by multiple stab wounds from bayonets and sharpened bamboo stakes.
Four were then butchered by the island garrison's surgeons and their livers and
meat from their thighs eaten by senior Japanese officers.

Curtis Houck, writing
for Media
Research Center noted that notorious liar Brian Williams appeared on MSNBC’s
Andrea Mitchell Reports to “throw
some shade in the direction of the US military and then-President Harry Truman
complaining that ‘we’re the only nation to have used them [atomic bombs] in
anger” against the horrifying Axis Powers member.

The
Washington Free Beacon reported that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
will not be visiting Pearl Harbor to reciprocate Obama’s visit to Hiroshima.

On the 75th
anniversary of the December 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor which
killed more than 2,400 Americans, President Obama also will not visit Pearl
Harbor. This is odd given the fact that
he spent much of his childhood in Hawaii.

I found Obama’s
Hiroshima visit repugnant. This is the
weekend we commemorate Americans who fell on the battlefield including those
who died fighting a war the Japanese started.

The atomic bomb gave Japan its postwar mission for peace. Obama doesn’t understand this. His ideological world has little or nothing
to do with American reality.

There are simply not enough expletives to adequately express
my disgust with this man’s disgraceful apologies to nations undeserving of
them.

UPDATE: Welcome readers of The
Pirate’s Coveand thanks to the Admiral for linking to this post.

He’s the idiot who
described the Republican Party's health care plan as "die
quickly" and who later equated the health care system to an
American holocaust. Grayson also
suggested former vice president Dick Cheney was a vampire who could
turn into a bat and fly away at a moment's notice.

When he lost his
congressional reelection battle in 2010 to opponent Daniel Webster, he called Webster
“Taliban Dan”. When congressional
redistricting allowed Grayson to retake his seat, he went on Al Sharpton’s now
defunct MSNBC television show to accuse
Republicans of legislative terrorism.

Grayson is a
despicable piece of garbage. I rank him
right up there with the likes of Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Elizabeth Warren, Al
Franken and Chuck Schumer.

“It has been said that politics is the
second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance
to the first.”—Ronald
Reagan

The mouthy Grayson is
facing
yet another uphill battle in his bid to be elected to the US Senate. He’s facing Patrick Murphy who has repeatedly criticized him over ethical
questions about his management of a Cayman Islands-based hedge fund. Senate
Minority Leader Harry Reid has called for Grayson to quit the race, saying he
has no moral compass. President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have
endorsed Murphy, as has the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Allegations
published inthe New York TimesandTampa Bay Times reported Grayson was trading off his power
as a congressman. Bloomberg recently reported his family
profited from slave labor in Africa. He’s under a congressional ethics
investigation, which in March released a 1,000-page report finding he probably
broke the law by using his office to operate the aforementioned hedge fund.

Murphy and Grayson are seeking the seat Republican Marco
Rubio is giving up after his failed presidential campaign. Republicans running
for the seat include Congressmen David Jolly and Ron DeSantis, Lt. Gov. Carlos
Lopez-Cantera and businessmen Carlos Beruff and Todd Wilcox.

Recently CNN
reported the bad blood between Dirty Harry Reid and the bully reached a
crescendo at a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill in which he confronted Reid “only
to be shut down and told he hopes Grayson loses his primary race.”

Reid's
spokeswoman, Kristin Orthman, blasted Grayson in a statement about the
exchange, saying, Reid "was honored to be invited by the Congressional
Progressive Caucus to discuss issues on which he and they can work together.
Alan Grayson decided to be disruptive, to the embarrassment of his fellow
colleagues."

Thursday, May 26, 2016

An
aerial view of the American cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, near Omaha beach, site
of the vast military operation by Allied forces in Normandy, which turned the
tide of World War II, eventually leading to the liberation of occupied France
and the end of the war against Nazi Germany. (Photo credit JOEL SAGET/AFP/Getty
Images)

As
many of you champ at the bit waiting for the three day weekend commemorating
Memorial Day to start, I wanted to take a moment to share my thoughts on the magnitude
of what this “holiday” means to America.

President
Ronald Reagan, speaking at Arlington National Cemetery in 1982, noted that
Abraham Lincoln dedicated a small cemetery at Gettysburg marking a terrible
collision between the armies of the North and South. He concluded that Lincoln was wrong when he
said, “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here; while it
can never forget what they did here.”

Reagan
said, “His
remarks commemorating those who gave their ‘last full measure of devotion’ were
long remembered. But since that moment
at Gettysburg, few other such addresses have become part of our national
heritage—not because of the inadequacy of the speakers, but because of the
inadequacy of words.”

“I have no illusions
about what little I can add now to the silent testimony of those who gave their
lives willingly for their country. Words are even more feeble on this Memorial
Day, for the sight before us is that of a strong and good nation that stands in
silence and remembers those who were loved and who, in return, loved their
countrymen enough to die for them.”

On Memorial Day or any other day, the
cemeteries for those Americans who fell in battle offer profound lessons.

In 1950, four-star
General Mark W. Clark wrote about returning to Italy after World War II was
won. It was Memorial Day, as it happened, and Clark was with his wife.

“We visited the
American cemetery at Anzio and saw the curving rows of white crosses that spoke
so eloquently of the price that America and her Allies had paid for the
liberation of Italy,” he wrote. “If ever proof were needed that we fought for a
cause and not for conquest, it could be found in these cemeteries. Here was our
only conquest: all we asked of Italy was
enough of her soil to bury our gallant dead."

How can
we remember those who have sacrificed their lives for our country? To honor its war dead who remained overseas,
the United States maintains 24 permanent military cemeteries; 22 of them in 8
countries follow the path of American forces in World War I and World War II in
the European Theater and the Pacific Theater of the global conflict. These are some of the most highly
maintained shrines of their nature in the world. Among the graves are tales of dedication and
heroism for the nation.

Beneath the neatly patterned white crosses and Stars of David
lie the remains of 125,000 Americans. There are 94,000 more names commemorated
on Walls of the Missing whose bodies were never found. Dignified and serene,
they were created to honor America's fallen, but they are also intended to
inspire and eloquently teach the living the scope of their sacrifice and loss
in the sweep of history.

The next few paragraphs are dedicated to my friends who are
veterans of Vietnam.I bear no shame in telling you that I revered Ronald Reagan.No one did more to heal the nation with his optimism and patriotism and
the promise that America was indeed a land that God had blessed.

On Veteran’s Day 1984, President Reagan spoke at the
dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Statue.

“Those who fought in
Vietnam are part of us, part of our history. They reflected the best in us. No
number of wreaths, no amount of music and memorializing will ever do them
justice but it is good for us that we honor them and their sacrifice. And it's
good that we do it in the reflected glow of the enduring symbols of our
Republic.”

“The fighting men
depicted in the statue we dedicate today, the three young American servicemen,
are individual only in terms of their battle dress; all are as one, with eyes
fixed upon the memorial bearing the names of their brothers in arms. On their
youthful faces, faces too young to have experienced war, we see expressions of
loneliness and profound love and a fierce determination never to forget.”

“The men of Vietnam
answered the call of their country. Some of them died in the arms of many of
you here today, asking you to look after a newly born child or care for a loved
one. They died uncomplaining. The tears staining their mud-caked faces were not
for self-pity but for the sorrow they knew the news of their death would cause
their families and friends.”

“As you knelt
alongside his litter and held him one last time, you heard his silent message—he
asked you not to forget.”

“When you returned
home, you brought solace to the loved ones of those who fell, but little solace
was given to you. Some of your countrymen were unable to distinguish between
our native distaste for war and the stainless patriotism of those who suffered
its scars. But there's been a rethinking there, too. And now we can say to you,
and say as a nation: Thank you for your courage. Thank you for being patient
with your countrymen. Thank you. Thank you for continuing to stand with us
together.”

“The men and women of
Vietnam fought for freedom in a place where liberty was in danger. They put
their lives in danger to help a people in a land far away from their own. Many
sacrificed their lives in the name of duty, honor, and country. All were
patriots who lit the world with their fidelity and courage.”

Wednesday, May 25, 2016

WASHINGTON (AP) --
A State Department audit has faulted Hillary Clinton and previous secretaries
of state for poorly managing email and other computer information and slowly
responding to new cybersecurity risks.

The Associated Press
obtained a copy of the report by the agency's inspector general Wednesday.

It cites
"longstanding, systemic weaknesses" related to communications. These
started before Clinton's appointment as secretary of state, but her failures
were singled out as more serious.

The review came after
revelations Clinton exclusively used a private email account and server while
in office. Clinton is now the likely Democratic presidential nominee.

The 78-page report says the department and its secretaries were
"slow to recognize and to manage effectively the legal requirements and
cybersecurity risks associated with electronic data communications,
particularly as those risks pertain to its most senior leadership."

Sometime when I was in my late teens or early twenties, I visited a
stationery store in downtown Stockton. Back in the day when big box
office supply stores had not yet been invented and people quaintly still
wrote letters. This one was having a clearance sale of some sort,
presaging the going out of business sale that was destined to come. The
store closed its doors years ago.

I came across several
boxes of Bibles...New Testaments, actually. Pocket sized and...armored!
What the well dressed G.I. should be carrying! There have been
anecdotes about people carrying a Bible or something in their left
breast pocket stopping a bullet. James Doohan, "Scottie" from the USS
Enterprise:

Doohan was hit by six rounds
fired from a Bren gun by a nervous Canadian sentry: four in his leg,
one in the chest, and one through his right middle finger. The bullet to
his chest was stopped by a silver cigarette case given to him by his
brother.

And they say smoking will kill you!

The
primary market for this product, I suspect, was people on the
homefront. Anxious mothers, girl friends, relatives seeking to provide
some added measure of protection, both physical and perhaps spiritual,
to those they loved, would buy these and give them or send them to those
within the sound of shots fired in anger. I doubt that many G.I.s
bought them for themselves, since at that age, most of them, like
myself, believed themselves to be at least vaguely bulletproof.

Some were called “The Heart-Shield Bible".
They came with different sayings engraved on them. The ones I saw
weren't gold plated or coated. Some had a message from FDR in them*. All
of them had a message from Jesus Christ. Hard to say how many of them
were actually read and how many of them were simply tokens or talismans,
carried to ease their loved ones' minds.

But I'm sure
they carried a little bit of home in their left breast pocket. A token
of the love felt for them by those back on the home front. Those who
wanted them to return to them when the war was finally over. And did the
only thing, other than praying, that they knew that they could do.

*Could
you possibly imagine a message from our current Commander-in-Chief,
printed in a Bible, Koran or Torah, encouraging our troops, "commending
the reading... to all who serve in the armed forces of the United
States"? Me neither.

They
say the long primary fight with the senator from Vermont looks like it
could go all the way to the Democratic Convention in Philadelphia.

Sanders, speaking to The
Associated Press yesterday said he had a "shot" at winning
the June 7 California primary against Clinton and said, given his delegate
deficit, it was "imperative" that he perform well.

"What happens if
I win a major victory in California? Will people say, 'Oh, we're really
enthusiastic about Hillary Clinton despite the fact that Bernie Sanders has now
won whatever it may be, 25 states, half the states?'" he said.

If that happens, he
added, superdelegates "may rethink that. That is why you want the process
to play out."

Just this afternoon,
the AP
reported the Sanders campaign requested a recanvass in Kentucky’s primary where
he trails Hillary by less than one-half of 1 percent of the vote. It’s interesting to note that AP never called the race despite her
slight lead just in case the old codger decided to ask for the recanvass.

Today, while at a
rally in Anaheim, ol’ Bernie talked about how his campaign has gotten the youth
vote motivated.

“What does it tell
us?' Sanders asked. “It tells us and it
should tell the country and certainly the leadership of the Democratic Party
that our ideas and our vision is the future of America,” he said. He
went on to tell supporters that a win in the Golden State could keep his bid
going imploring them, “If we win California big we're going to go marching into
the Democratic Convention with a lot of momentum. And if we go marching into
the Democratic Convention with a lot of momentum we're going to march out with
the Democratic nomination. And if we march out with the Democratic nomination,
Donald Trump is toast,' Sanders concluded.

With polls showing
Trump on the verge of overtaking the Hag from Hell, Sanders can make his case
even more loudly.

And just for shits
and giggles, here’s a Tweet from my favorite parody account as a palate
cleanser because that’s how we roll here:

Effort to teach US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton charm and grace compared to instructing a donkey to solve differential equations.

Marine Staff Sgt. John
York has been deployed three times, but this last deployment was his first
since his son Bryson was born. He would
be 7,000 miles away. He decided to
celebrate all the holidays he would miss with his son in the precious 10 days of
pre-deployment leave.

The father-son duo went
trick-or-treating together. John went to
every neighbor’s house on the block and he had candy that he handed to them so
they’d be ready when his son rang the doorbell.

Santa came early with
wrapped gifts delivered under a decorated Christmas tree and for his 4th birthday,
which the two celebrated early, he got a brand new bike.

Although enjoying the holidays early was an amazing treat for
their little boy, having a video keepsake of those moments was an even better
treat for John.

The father and son have a bond that John’s wife Priscilla says
she’d “never be able to match.”

This election cycle
is like no other in my lifetime.
Honestly, when my state held its presidential primary I did not
vote. My reason? I hadn’t settled on a candidate. I vacillated between Ben Carson, Scott Walker
and Carly Fiorina. I knew I wanted no
part of Jeb or the rest of the field.

Now, after a primary
season that was nearly as brutal as the saga of Westeros and the battle for the
Iron Throne, we are left with a doddering socialist, a bitter and corrupt hag
and a real estate gasbag vying for the most significant office in the world.

Interesting times.

With just over five
months left before the general election, the polls are tied: The RealClearPolitics.com average of recent polls in the
presidential race shows Trump with 43.4 percent and Hillary with 43.2 percent. All four of the polls sponsored or
co-sponsored by television news networks show both candidates within
statistically indistinguishable percentages: Fox News and ABC/Washington
Post have Trump narrowly ahead, while NBC/Wall
Street Journal and CBS/New York Times
have Clinton narrowly ahead.

The Washington Times points out that more than 10 percent
of registered voters are still reporting themselves as undecided.

The pundit class and
media lapdogs remain flummoxed as we are just weeks away from the Republican
National Convention in Cleveland July 18-21 and the Democratic National
Convention in Philadelphia July 25-28.

The graph below from Real Clear Politics reveals the looming “death
cross” for Clinton and the “golden cross” for Trump.

Back in July of 2015
Clinton led Trump in the polls 53.3 to 33.7.
Six months later in December, Clinton’s lead narrowed to 47.0 to 43.5
and now Trump holds a 0.2% lead.

Monday, May 23, 2016

WASHINGTON
TIMES—
Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald on Monday compared the length of
time veterans wait to receive health care at the VA to the length of time
people wait for rides at Disneyland, and said his agency shouldn't use wait
times as a measure of success because Disney doesn't either.

"When you go to
Disney, do they measure the number of hours you wait in line? Or what's
important? What's important is what your satisfaction with the experience is,"
McDonald said Monday during a Christian Science Monitor breakfast with
reporters. "And what I would like to move to, eventually, is that kind of
measure."

McDonald's comments
angered House Speaker Paul Ryan, who tweeted out Monday afternoon, "This
is not make-believe, Mr. Secretary. Veterans have died waiting in those
lines."

McDonald faced
questions at the breakfast about the VA's lack of transparency surrounding how
long veterans must wait to receive care at VA facilities around the country.
The agency has weathered controversy over the past several years due to its
struggle to provide timely care for many patients.

The VA secretary said
most veterans report being satisfied with their care and argued that the
average wait time for a veteran seeking VA treatment is only a matter of days.

He said he did not
believe a measure called the "create date," which gauges a veteran's
wait time by counting from the day the veteran first requests care, was a
"valid measure" of a veteran's VA experience.

The Government
Accountability Office released a report in April
exploring the metric used to count a veterans' wait time, called the
"preferred date." The measure does not count from the time a veteran
first calls to make an appointment.

A Disney Theme Parks
spokesperson responded by phone to deny this claim:

“We take wait times very seriously.
We continually push the boundaries to give our guests the best experience
possible. A large team of highly trained industrial engineers are tasked with
improving our guest’s experiences, from transportation, to guest flow, to
ride comfort and certainly wait times.

One of the things we take great
pride in is if you have a wait time at our parks, your wait is enjoyable. We
call this the Disney Difference. We recently remodeled the Dumbo ride, doubling
its size and adding a Big Top area for families waiting for the ride. This area
is a huge, interactive, air conditioned area for children to play in
and where adults can relax with a buzzer they receive that notifies them
when their spot is ready on the ride.”

The spokesperson added:

“If you wait at the Haunted Mansion
there are musical tombstones that will sing to you. There is a flowing honey
wall at the Winnie the Poo ride. We designed animated crabs for The Little
Mermaid waiting area which will interact with you and play games while you
wait.

We take every facet of the guest
experience very seriously. If you have to wait, you should have fun while doing
it.”

When asked why the VA
Secretary would use their company as an example for wait lines, the Disney
spokesperson said:

“I’m not sure. This
company was founded by veterans. Roy Disney was an officer in the U.S. Navy and
Walt drove an ambulance in France assisting service members directly after
WWI.”

A $10b program that was supposed to "fix" VA wait times for some vets has actually made wait times worse https://t.co/cYd0dr7c3n

Thursday, May 19, 2016

There's a rumor making the rounds that Newt Gingrich is not only on
Donald Trump's short list of VPs, but that he is the favorite. He
certainly has been making the rounds of the talking head programs
talking up his buddy Trump. Trump could do a lot worse than Newtie. Of
course, Newt comes with some baggage that might not set well with some
women voters. So, let's take a look at some of the pros and cons of a
Gingrich vice presidency.

On the plus side, Newt is
really smart. He's formally educated. He's literate. He's the anti-Trump in this regard. He was the architect
and prime mover behind the Contract with America which gave control of the
House of Representatives to Republicans, providing balance to the Clinton
profligacy, forcing him to balance the national budget, implementing welfare
reforms and any number of good things whose successes Bill Clinton took credit
for.

Newt knows the ins and
outs of getting things done in Washington. He will surely make mincemeat out of
anyone the Democrats can dig up in a VP debate. And Newt is fully qualified to
assume the Oval Office if, God forbid, something should ever happen to the
president. In his presidential bid in 2012, after standing up against a biased
media, there was a time when it looked like Newt might take the lead, but it
was short lived.* Newt
would have been, IMHO, a better candidate than Mitt.

Now the negatives. Newt is
not the best liked of politicians. I mentioned a week or so back that a friend
of mine from high school demonstrated a visceral hatred of Newt at the mere
mention of his name. She repeated the liberal narrative, that Newt had
callously handed his first wife her divorce papers while she was laying a
hospital bed, racked with disease. And while I don't believe the narrative is
true, nonetheless, I doubt her disgust of Newt has moderated any over the
years.

Then, there's the question
of trade agreements. Newt mentioned just this week that he was the whip that
drove NAFTA through the House. Last I heard, NAFTA was still anathema to union
guys on the Left. Supposedly there are Bernie voters who talk about gravitating
to Trump should Hillary prevail as the Democrat candidate. Now imagine them
being asked to hold their nose and vote for a ticket with the father of NAFTA
on it? That could prove problematic.

Newt is a brilliant man
but he has image problems. Even though in an ideal world that shouldn't matter,
in the United States of Kardashia, JFK trumps a Nixon, Reagan trumps Carter and
those guys from Air Force One and Independence Day inspire confidence with
their square jawed manliness. Newt looks like the kid who gets his lunch money
taken away from him.

Will a ticket of two, old
white men prevail over the first woman president and a designated minion to be
chosen later? Ya pays your money, ya takes your chances!

*Newt and his wife Callista
flew off for a vacation in Hawaii in the wake of a very successful debate,
reminiscent of Evelle Younger, who, after debating Jerry Brown during his first
California gubernatorial re-election bid, flew off to Hawaii with his wife,
while Gov. Moonbeam stayed behind, and took to the airwaves of Sacramento radio
stations to lie and misrepresent what Younger had said the night before. Both
the Gingrichs and the Youngers came back sun-kissed and kissing their elections
goodbye.

Sunday, May 15, 2016

I know what you're thinking. Don't judge. They say that there's a
genetic predisposition for addiction in some people. And though I was
born south of the Mason Dixon line, I have not noticed any
uncontrollable urges. That is, until now.

I never ate
grits as a lad. Oh, on rare occasions maybe, but never as a steady diet.
Oh, sure, I've tried recreational grits over the years. I even ordered
grits from a Canadian Denny's once. (They're quite legal there.) But, they
must have sensed I wasn't from around there, so they served me hash
browns instead.

All that changed recently. You know how
the pusher often gives you the first hit for free? I'm minding my own
business, quietly shopping for groceries and I hear this "Psst! Over
here!" I look, and there's a box of grits 50% off. "Hey!" I thought to
myself, "a bargain!" And I started having grits with my breakfast a few
days later. A little butter, maybe a little shredded cheese on top.
Still, I could take it or leave it. I'd fry up some bacon, poach a
couple of eggs and have some grits on the side. No problem!

Then,
one morning, I was looking at the box the grits came in, with those
eggs nestled closely against the grits, and I thought: What if I were to
put my poached eggs directly on top of my grits? I was hooked!
There's really no turning back now. I'm a gritsaholic. I don't think
there's a twelve step treatment for what I've got.

All I
have now is this cautionary tale: Young people, beware that first box
of grits. People might tell you "It's a Southern thing", but that
doesn't make you immune. Someone once licked a psychedelic toad even
before they knew it would get them high, so don't think this can't
happen to you. If you're one of those people who have not bought into
the whole 'eggs are bad for your cholesterol' thing, I'm warning you:
put your eggs on top of your grits at your own peril.